10 Deleted Scenes That Actually Improve Movie Characters

Richard Kelly was restricted by the studio when making Donnie Darko, strong-armed into cutting the film under two hours and making it as accessible and digestible as possible, which makes the sheer density of the theatrical cut all the more puzzling.

Is it the end of the world or is Donnie himself hallucinating, dreaming, or in another dimension?

The director's cut threw another spanner in the works in a deleted scene with Donnie's therapist. Before he leaves her office (2:48 in the accompanying video), she tells him he can stop taking his medication, as they are placebos. She goes on to talk to him about atheism, agnosticism and God, but the important moment is that initial one.

We know that Donnie is deeply troubled from the outset, with the doctor herself identifying him as a paranoid schizophrenic, but as the film proceeds we are asked to believe in the increasingly strange occurrences around him - big bunny visions, temporal worms, etcetera. And the objectiveness of these occurrences is supported by the medication he is taking to negate any purely psychological (rather than metaphysical or supernatural) manifestations.

So, for such a small, seemingly insignificant scene, this one has huge implications for Donnie as a character and the film as a whole: the simple fact that Donnie has not been taking anything at all calls into question his very sanity, makes his character ever more complex, and casts doubt on the legitimacy of every single dark thing he has done.